


effettivamente

by kedda



Category: SKAM (Italy)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Internalized Homophobia, S2e5clip5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-08
Updated: 2018-11-08
Packaged: 2019-08-04 23:37:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16356485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kedda/pseuds/kedda
Summary: A part of him, a part that has been speaking to him his whole life, insists that he was right; it doesn’t make sense to shove who you fuck in people’s faces, who you’re in love with.  But the relief he’d felt when he had revealed to Filippo that he was seeing a boy challenges this familiar instinct.





	effettivamente

**Author's Note:**

> Title from beginning of S2 trailer when Martino says "Effettivamente, non ti ho detto una cosa/Actually, there's something I haven't told you."
> 
> cw for internalized homophobia and something adjacent to self-hatred. i'm sorry, skamit keeps making me write angst.

_ Voi gay _ he’d said to Filippo only a month ago; that had been before Niccolò, before he’d said all that  _ stupid shit _ —he breathes out.  Filippo had been right of course.  He  _ doesn’t _ have the courage to come out and let this thing inside him loose.  It seems impossible, and even after what Filippo had said it  _ does _ seem frivolous and unnecessary to make the fact that he’s gay, only a part of him, be the thing that defines him so completely.  Is it really such a sacrifice to slip under the radar? Does it really matter so much for others to know? A part of him, a part that has been speaking to him his whole life, insists that he was right; it doesn’t make sense to shove who you fuck in people’s faces, who you’re in love with.  But the relief he’d felt when he had revealed to Filippo that he was seeing a boy challenges this familiar instinct.  _ “Was” being the operative word _ , he can’t stop himself from thinking, and he feels everything go numb.  

He’d sat on that cold, concrete floor of the Casa Sperimentale for what had felt like hours after he received Niccolò’s text.  He doesn’t honestly know what to make of it.  _ I know it’s my fault but I need a little more time _ .  Had he just been leading Martino on and only just now decided that he wasn’t worth it—is that what he meant by fault?  Nothing in what he can remember of Niccolò’s body language or voice seems to indicate anything but reciprocal affection.  And if he says Niccolò says he just needs some time it sounds like he’s still thinking about them being together.  _ Maybe things were going too fast _ and now he feels like a fool for telling Filippo  _ I’m seeing a guy _ with such confidence, confidence that he had felt was justified by their reunion just a couple days before, as well as the fact that Niccolò had gone on a break with Maddalena to be with  _ him _ .  The weight of Niccolò’s hand on his neck and his warm fingers curling around the shell of his ear had felt like coming home.   _ About later, I don’t know…  _ and with an apology that sounded like a goodbye he was released back into the wilderness again.  Now the angles of every building seem brutal and unyielding, the light more glaring, and the presence of other people has become wholly unbearable.  

What he had barely been able to admit to Filippo is simultaneously a small part of him and so big and overwhelming that he feels like he could die under its weight.  When it was shared it had given his hands the power to touch, to feel in a way that was true and good. Now in the solitude of his head he feels like his chest has caved in, and the fact that no one knows or seems to care makes him want to both scream and disappear.   _ I’m sorry for the inconvenience but my heart is breaking _ , he thinks deliriously.  When he checked the chat yesterday it had been girls, girls, girls, talked about in ways that made Martino uncomfortable for reasons he couldn’t chalk up solely to lack of attraction.   _ You’re all sick _ , he’d joked in the chat, and Elia’s retort spoke volumes.   _ Noi? _ he’d replied, assuming that Martino had slipped up by excluding himself from the boys salivating over l’Argentina and Emma.  Of course, then he’d had the buffer of their kiss in the bathroom to make everything else tolerable. Now none of that was safe or certain, and just thinking of pretending with Emma after he’d once held Niccolò’s body close to his filled him with panic.  He closes his eyes.  _ Niccolò.  Emma. Niccolò.   _ Around and around and around.  This is a train of thought with which he’d been growing increasingly familiar, and with each revolution Marti wishes more and more that the world would just shut up and leave him in peace.  

His thoughts turn inexplicably to his mother.  She had called him the day Niccolò had left, and since then he can’t help thinking of those two separate events together; it’s as if the simple fact of hearing her voice had summoned him away from a dream, or that somehow the reassertion of her presence had reduced Niccolò’s to cool sheets and a red string with a beginning and an end.  It all feels so unfair, and again he thinks of the daily danger of living that Filippo had described.  _ I could get on the bus and be beaten bloody by the first fascist fuck that shows up _ .  Feeling cold, Marti considers whether there is anything any of them can do in the face of such annihilating hate.  Filippo is still living and seemed to be physically well; Marti wonders now what Filippo’s experience has been, and what makes it possible for someone like Filippo to refuse to compromise day after day, year after year.  With Niccolò everything else seemed like noise, and for a gleaming moment he could laugh after almost being caught in the bathroom, he could enjoy the impulsive kiss under the ear that Niccolò had given him on the way out.  To be so brazen had sent a jolt through him that made him feel hopeful in a way that he hadn’t let himself feel in years. Now he has angered Filippo, estranged Niccolò, and he doesn’t know how to move forward, or where. All people can do, he supposes, is keep on living.


End file.
